Hope is a thing with feathers
by platedlizard
Summary: Pre-series. Maria is a Hunter, and Toudo a SOLOMON researcher. Will they be able to bring Hope to the world?
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer. I do not own Witch Hunter Robin, which is the property of Bandai Entertainment. No money has been or will be made from the production of the story. All original characters are my own, and may only be used with my permission.

The title comes from an Emily Dickson poem, the chapter title from The Westside Story.

* * *

Chapter 1.

A Girl Named Maria

Katrina knelt in a pool of her friend's blood, cradling Anna-Marie's lifeless body. "No," she whispered to no one in particular, most certainly not the monster her friend had married. "Please, Anna," she begged, knowing that it was useless, that Anna could no longer answer. She could hear Marcus inside the house, roaring around and destroying Anna's things, gleeful at killing the woman who had fled him.

"No," she said, this time stronger, louder, denying Anna's murder, her death. It simply could not happen, that her childhood friend would be so casually destroyed by someone she loved. Such a thing could not have happened to Anna. Not sweet, loving Anna who had been joyfully expecting her first child.

Katrina had hated Marcus on first sight. He had forced Anna to abandon friends and family, something Katrina could not understand. Anna had pulled away after her marriage, all but disappeared, and Katrina had wept bitter tears over the loss of her life-long friend. Until that night a month ago, when two friends had been joyfully reunited. Anna had fled Marcus, fearing for her unborn child. They had returned that day simply to gather Anna's things while Marcus was at work.

It was simply tragic that Marcus had been fired for being drunk.

"No," Katrina said again, feeling the hear of anger behind her words. That Anna had been killed for the crime of loving the wrong man was a sin against the very structure of the universe. "Thou shall not kill," she whispered to Ann's corpse, "and he did. He sinned against you and your unborn babe."

Inside her something broke loose of its chains. The beast that was her family's legacy tore free, ripping and roaring through her mind. The beast effortlessly reached out and grabbed a dormouse that was hiding in a burrow not a meter from the women. It crushed out that tiny life. "Is that what it felt like, Marcus?" Katrina ask the air. "Is that what it felt like to shoot sweet Anna-Marie?"

She stood, letting Anna's body fall to the ground. Katrina staggered into the house to find Marcus in the bedroom, drinking cheap wine from the bottle and howling with laughter. The beast within Katrina grasped a rocking chair (Anna's, noted the small part of Katrina's mind that was truly hers) and slammed it into the man. "Is that what if felt like, every time you beat her?" she asked Marcus. The stunned man didn't answer.

"Is it!" she demanded, this time hurling a jewelry box at his head. "It this what it felt like to hurt someone defenseless? Answer me!"

The man whimpered, and then suddenly burst to his feet and tried to dodge passed Katrina and out the door. He didn't make it. The beast within the woman gripped the man and slammed him against the wall. Invisible coils wrapped around him and began to slowly squeeze his life out.

"Is this what it feels like to kill a human? Is this what it felt like to kill Anna?" The woman laughed. In the month that Anna had come to live with her she had heard all about how Marcus had treated her. What she had heard had merely flames the fires of hatred even more. Such scum does not deserve to live. "No," she answered for him, "Killing her must not have felt like this, for she was kind and far too loving for her own good. Killing you is exterminating a pest."

The coils squeezed harder, and the man's face turned purple as he gasped for air. They tightened every time he exhaled, preventing the man from drawing in the next breath. He would be dead soon, Katrina noted happily. "She and her babe are in Heaven now, sitting beside God and the Virgin and their Son, and you will never see them again. You will be rotting in Hell." On that final word the coils spasmed around the man, crushing his chest. Blood spurted from his mouth, mixing with Anna-Marie's where it coated Katrina.

Drained and grieving Katrina left the house and returned to her home. There was nowhere else to go.

* * *

_Maria paced along gray halls that branched this way and that. She didn't know where she was or how she had came to be there. She didn't care. All she knew was that somewhere along the halls was what she sought. Something important. Something that needed to be found._

_All around her she could hear the lonely voices of lost spirits. They were calling, but not to her, somehow she knew that. They were calling for the same thing that she searched for. She paused, perhaps if she listened to the spirits they would be able to tell her where to search. She blinked, search for what? She didn't know, couldn't guess. It wasn't important. She knew if she looked for it long enough in these gray halls she would eventually find it. Even if it took until the end of the world._

_Still, she wished to find it, whatever it was, before too long. She was tired of searching. Tired of looking as she had looked for as long as she could remember. Tired of whatever-it-was that was missing, and which she wanted so badly. (How could she want something like that if she didn't know what it was? The part of her that watched her dreams asked) Time for her to hold whatever-it-was-and-should-be she thought._

_A light flared around a corner, red and orange and yellow, and somehow Maria knew that whatever-it-was was nearly in her grasp. She hurried to it, and turned the corner only to see the light disappearing around down the hall. Heedless of dignity or grace she rushed for it, hoping to catch up with it soon and find out just what it was that was so precious to her. She was nearly there, she nearly had it…_

BEEP BEEP BEEP

"Good morning, the time now is 6:00 am, and for all you early listeners we have a special treat for you coming up in a half an hour, an interview with noted singer and popstar…

Maria rolled over and hit the alarm clock with frustration. Of all the times she had an early shift, it had to be today. Pulling herself out of bed she noted only a few aches and twinges in her joints this morning, with any luck then it was going to be a good day.

After a quick shower and full breakfast she was on her way to the Headquarters of SOLOMON's Italian division. She had learned long ago that she felt worse if she didn't start the day off with a big meal. The traffic was light until she entered Rome, which as usual was gridlocked. So she did what any sane person did inside the city, which was to pay for parking and take a train to where ever you intended to go. She got to Headquarters at a quarter to eight, just in time to see her supervisor walk in the door.

Maria blinked as thick folder plopped down in front of her on the desk. She looked up at her section head. "A new case?"

He nodded, "Wife beater was crushed, probably telekinesis."

She leaned back in the chair, "And the wife?"

"Shot dead by the beater, apparently. Ballistics match a guy in their house, and the only fingerprints on the gun belong to the man."

"Wonderful," she sighed and began flipping through the file. No witnesses, a list of suspects a kilometer long. Maria was pleased, a real Hunt for the first time in weeks. She was getting sick of processing old cases. She felt a pang of guilt over being happy at someone else's misfortune, but it was so rare that they let her out into the field. "None of the others wanted this?"

"They have too many cases as it is," Mr. Santori said reluctantly. "As you'll see when you read the file it looks as if the Witch is newly Awakened. You should be able to handle it just fine. Hopefully you will be able to find him or her before one of the more experienced Witches do."

The Hunter frowned at that, lately some of the more powerful Witches were gathering others to them. SOLOMON couldn't touch them yet—they had too much power either personally, or politically. No one knew why, but it was one of the things she had been researching. The research was all very important, but it was not what she had joined SOLOMON for. If it wasn't for her infirmity she probably would have been able to be a full time Hunter, and not just a glorified data analyst. The few Hunts that she had managed to be authorized to go on had proved that.

Maria sighed again as she pulled out the file. Already she knew there was going to be a lot of leg work. Still, she thought, the bright side was that she was actually given a case to work on rather then the usual make-work. She had wanted to go out there and _do_ something, not sit in an office. Her chief was afraid to put her out there, she knew. He was afraid that if she got hurt or her illness took a turn for the worse he would be blamed by her father. In a way it was too bad Papa was so high in Solomon, it made it difficult for his daughter to shine on her own.

Perhaps she should transfer to another division, SOLOMON US, or the new division in Japan. At least there her section head wouldn't working in the same complex as her father. Really, it was a bit ridiculous for a twenty-five-year-old woman to be worried about what her father would say. Yes, perhaps that would be the best decision. She would be able to participate in more Hunts, and not have to sit back and analyze as much data on the life histories of known Witches.

Maria laughed at herself, the only reason she was thinking like this was because today was a good day for her. She felt almost normal, almost like what other people must feel like most of the time. On one of her bad days she would be happy to sit down at a desk, or even lie down on her bed at home, and study cases. On bad days she could barely move.

Amazing that SOLOMON had granted her request to become a Hunter.

Flipping through the file she started making a list of all the people she would be contacting for the Hunt.

As she continued to make her way through the file her fellow Hunters filed into work one by one. Most did little more than give her a careful greeting. She was never sure if it was her position as Juliano's daughter, or that she didn't Hunt anywhere near as much as they did that made them keep their distance. It made her a bit sad—they didn't respect her as a Hunter but were a little too polite to say anything about it. Well, there was only one way to gain respect, and that was to earn it. Perhaps if she managed to wrangle enough Hunts under her belt they would be more inclusive.

On reflection, perhaps not, SOLOMON was the sort of organization where you never knew who was working for whom or what their agenda really was.

She pulled her notes together and put the file in her briefcase and left for the first of the door to door visits she would be making among the deceased's' friends, neighbors, acquaintances, and family. With any luck she would find a witness or Witch soon.

* * *

None of the neighbors had seen anything, which was usual for this type of neighborhood. Even if they had seen something they would not have spoken to her. Maria supposed she must look like a policewoman or a government agent, something which most of the people in this particular neighborhood of Rome were suspicious of. She was about to give up in frustration when a little old lady allowed how she might have some knowledge about 'that sweet little girl, Annamarie.'

Maria smiled nicely at the woman, who refused to give her last name. "We know her marriage was troubled, so if you can tell me anything about her and where she went it would help us greatly." The lady nodded absently as if agreeing with some thought she had, and leaned heavily on the old wooden cane she carried with her.

"Well dear, it is true that she didn't get along with her husband. That Marcus, he was a drunk. He would shout at her and…other things in the most dreadful fashion." The old lady hesitated, then glanced fearfully down the street before gesturing for Maria to come inside her house. Maria suppressed another smile, clearly the woman didn't want to be seen with her, but she also wanted to tell what had happened.

Maria blinked at the sudden darkness as the door closed behind her and looked around the room while she waited for her eyes to adjust. The walls of the woman's living room were covered, ceiling to floor, with religious icons and portraits. A cat meowed, and Maria found herself eye to eye with the biggest tom she had ever seen outside a zoo. The gray cat watched her from atop the mantel with eyes that were somehow too knowing for a mere animal.

"Well, my dear, would you like some tea? Or wine? I'm afraid the only coffee I have here is rather old…" the old woman said, gesturing to a loveseat.

"I'm not supposed to drink on duty, tea would be fine," Maria said, as she took the proffered seat. The old woman nodded slightly and left the room, presumably heading to the kitchen. As the woman left the cat jumped down off the mantel and walked over to Maria. He sat and looked at her from the floor, as if weighing and evaluating her, before His Majesty deigned to grace the loveseat with is presence. He turned to her again and blinked slowly at her. Maria laughed to herself, and returned the greeting.

"I wonder what you've seen, Puss?" she asked, half to herself, before petting the cat. No doubt that was what His Royal-ness intended.

The old woman re-entered the room and poured a cup of tea for Maria and handed to her, taking no special notice of the cat that had now curled up on the woman's lap. The women chatted for a bit about the weather and the traffic, nothing important in particular. To Maria it seemed as if the old woman was trying to feel her out, testing her in some way or perhaps trying to see if she was trustworthy.

On the other hand, she may have been merely lonely.

Maria took a sip of her tea and set the cup down in the palm of her hand. Social niceties taken care of, she decided to get down to business. "Now, about your neighbor…"

The old woman listened to the story as Maria knew it, and nodded to herself. The bare facts were easy enough to relate. The woman had been killed with a bullet that matched the one fired by the gun found near Marcus, but the man was killed by some other means. She didn't mention the Craft or Witches—the public wasn't supposed to know about them. The last thing SOLOMON needed was the type of mass hysteria that resulting the death of millions during the Middle Ages.

"So," she concluded, "we need to know who she was staying with, and why. I wonder if you could be any help?" The woman nodded again, and stared thoughtfully out the window at Maria's left shoulder.

"She had gone to live with friends. I remember now."

"And this was a month ago?" The woman nodded, and took a sip of her tea. "Do you know when, exactly?"

She shook her head. "No, I don't." After a moment of silence she suddenly burst out, "That Marcus, he was always trouble. Men shouldn't do those things to their wives. My first husband, he was like Marcus, but he died during the war. My second husband was much better, but they're both gone, now." She turned her gaze back to the window, but Maria knew that she was really seeing ghosts, memories of people long gone.

"Do you know which one of her friends she went to stay with?" Maria asked gently, breaking into the silence.

The woman took another sip, and seemed to make a decision. "Katrina, I think. I'm sorry, I don't know her last name—Anna never mentioned it."

_Or you forgot._ Maria filled in for her. But that wasn't fair, the woman was quite helpful in her own way. They hadn't known that Anna had been in contact with any of her friends after she had married Marcus, evidence had suggested otherwise.

"That's all right."

"You be careful. That Marcus, he was always the tough one." She said, eyeing the slender Hunter. "I didn't think anyone could hurt him. You seem like a nice girl, I would hate to see you hurt."

"It's all right," she said, trying not to think about how she might be lying to a woman old enough to be her grandmother. It was true that she could defend herself with the Craft. It was equally true that there were those more powerful than she. The personal _cost_ to her for using the Craft in a battle could be extremely high, which is why she preferred to use a gun with Witch-killing bullets, if possible. "I'm sure things will be fine."

The old woman escorted Maria to the door and held it open for her despite her faint protest. She was clearly unsteady on her feet, and a wheel-chair in the corner of the room attested to her sometimes inability to get around, but she still insisted on being a hostess. Maria thanked her for the tea, and barely noticed the cat's exit, surely to hunt mice.

After the door closed behind the Huntress the old woman sighed, and dispelled the illusion of senility and harmlessness that surrounded her. "Things may be fine for you, little Hunter, but what of the rest of us?" she whispered to the empty room.

* * *

She was back in her car and the traffic was good. This Katrina lived a good hour's drive away, clear on the other side of Rome. The sun was out, the sun roof down, and the birds were singing and Maria decided that it was okay to let the Ferrari do its thing. The accelerator hit the floor and suddenly she was flying on four wheels. It felt wonderful, even if she knew that she was going to have to comb her hair before talking to the dead woman's friend.

Life wasn't always this good. Maria could remember a time when she and her parents seemed to uproot themselves and move every six months. Her father's career as a Hunter, climbing the steps of SOLOMON's Temple, as he put it in a rare moment of humor, took him, and thus her and Mother, all over the world. By the time she was ten she'd lived in a dozen nations on four continents.

By the time she was eleven she was sick and her mother was dying.

Father (back then he'd only been _her_ Father, and not the Church's) had taken a medical leave of absence from his duties. SOLOMON allowed him to go. These things happened, family was important, and SOLOMON wanted its top Hunters to be happy with the organization. They moved to Germany, with its superior medical facilities, but there was nothing the best doctors in the world could do for her mother. The fault lay in their shared genetics—a trait that had been lying dormant in their bloodline for centuries until the Craft had blended with her mother's tainted blood.

Like her father, her mother had been a Hunter and Craft-User, but SOLOMON allowed her to retire after the birth of her daughter and due to her failing health. When her mother finally died Maria was almost twelve, and old enough to go into the early training SOLOMON supplied for its Hunters who had been born 'within the family' as the saying went.

Her Inquisition was a breeze, and her Craft fully Awoke during training while she was surrounded by teachers who were used to such things. They had recognized the symptoms early, and had taught her to control her inner power. During this time her father joined the Church, which gladly accepted men who had lived in the world. This allowed him to climb yet another Step of SOLOMON's Temple.

Another turn, and this time she cursed at a passing car, and resisted the temptation to race him.

She'd been sick during training, was sick and will be sick until her tainted blood killed her. That didn't slow her down. Nothing did. The open road beckoned, but she only laughed at it, there was no time to race, now, she was near her destination.

A few moments later she was driving sedately through a friendly neighborhood, with the usually assortment of cats and dogs and kids in the middle of the road, enjoying the nice day. At the end of the dead-end was Katrina's house. She pulled into the driveway, careful to block the woman's beater, and parked.

The yard was well-taken care of, but as Maria walked toward the house she noticed that there was a dead dog and a rat in the middle of the yard. They looked freshly killed. She glanced around at the neighborhood, noticed for the first time that all the children and pets were far down the road, and the area around the house was strangely silent. _This may be it_, Maria thought with a thrill of excitement. The house was silent and there was no one visible in through the windows. If the woman was inside she hadn't heard the car pull up, or hadn't cared. Maria walked over the animals to examine them briefly. Yes, she couldn't be sure, of course, but it looked like they had been squeezed to death, as if by a Burmese python. There was a faint bit of blood leaking from their mouths, and the dog's tongue had an odd blue appearance. The bodies were cold to the touch, but there didn't seem to be any sign of decay. She decided that they had been dead for less then a day.

The Hunter pulled out a small bowl made of obsidian and set it down on the ground next to the animal. She then drew a small knife from a sheath on her belt and cut deeply into the dog's throat and then dipped her finder into the congealed clot in the animal's jugular. It was coagulated, which made her job more difficult, but not impossible. After scooping out enough to cover the bottom of the bowl she returned the knife to it's sheath. She then drew out a syringe and a needle, uncapping the sterile instrument. With the ease of much practice Maria pierced the vein of her left arm and drew out 10ccs of blood. She squirted her blood into the black bowl, and then stirred the two together with the needle. The dog's blood stayed in clots that looked like raw liver, but that didn't matter.

She breathed on the blood, whispering incantations and prayers. Her father had always told her to focus her mind on God as she did this, to avoid the pagan thoughts that could lead to heresy and damnation. That was difficult to do, and Maria had secretly stopped trying years ago.

The dog's spirit awoke.

The body remained dead of course—there was no way to return life to that which was truly gone. It didn't move or twitch, for that was not a skill that she had.

_Blood-Witch, necromancy._

She'd been called that and worse, before.

The animal's image appeared in the bowl of blood. The clots didn't matter. She'd been told that she was the only one who could see the spirits of those she had called in the blood. It wasn't, after all, a true reflection. The animal looked up at her and wagged its tail tentatively. It looked friendly, and Maria wondered how it had triggered the Witch's wrath.

"Speak to me," she said, trying not to feel silly about asking a _dog_ to speak. "Tell me how you died. The dog wagged it's tail, and the image changed. The dog was asleep, and the lighting was different, probably indicating that it was the day before. Some sound that she couldn't hear made the animal's ears twitch and a moment later it was awake and alert, looking hopefully off into the distance. Then he was off and running.

Maria barely made out what happened next. The dog jumped up to greet a woman as she got out of her car, and the next moment it yelped soundlessly, before being crushed and _flung_ into the middle of the lawn. The woman stood there, as if in shock, and then staggered over to the dying animal. As the image faded Maria saw her kneel beside it, head down, weeping.

Maria stood and walked to the house. It was clear that the Witch lived here or somewhere nearby. The dog had known her, and had greeted her like a friend. She grimaced, the animal's death left a sour taste in her mouth. The Hunter slipped her hand under her jacket and loosened her handgun. Now was not the time to be unprepared. After ensuring that she would be able to draw it as needed Maria knocked politely on the door.

It opened a crack, and Maria found herself looking at a single suspicious eye, glaring at her from around the edge of the door. Maria smiled, the same reassuring smile that she had given the old woman. It didn't seem to work this time.

"Hi," she said, trying to sound like being glared at by a possible murder suspect was a normal occurrence for her, "I understand that you are friends with Anna-Marie Ventura?" The eye nodded cautiously. "I was hoping that you could shed some light on what happened, I understand that she was staying with you recently."

The eye seemed to glare at her some more, and then disappeared briefly as the woman pulled open the door. "Please, come in," Katrina whispered.

Maria entered the ill-lit house, blinking in the sudden darkness. The neatness of the outside belied the interior of the house. Shelves were tossed, their contents spilling onto the floor. Books lay on the ground in no particular order, their pages torn and ripped. Something stirred in the far reaches of the room, and Maria spotted a white rat, rooting around in the rubble. Its cage was upturned and bedding spread across the floor. It looked as if a hurricane had hit.

"Please, excuse the mess," Katrina said, her soft voice sounding ghostly in the devastation of the house. "When it happened, that is," she corrected herself abruptly, "when I heard what happened I was little…upset." Maria blinked. Upset seemed to be an understatement. She decided that it would be politer to pretend that a hurricane had gone through.

Maria shifted around, trying to locate a good place to sit down, but there was nowhere that seemed safe. The couch and chairs were shredded, and there wasn't a single place on the floor that didn't have some form of broken crockery. She resigned herself to standing. Strangely enough Katrina did not seem to mind the lack of seating, nor did she appear to be embarrassed about the state of her house. Her apology seemed to be a sort of rote response that she had memorized and repeated mechanically, without really caring about the words.

The woman was as messed up as the room—her face was covered in scratches. The scratches looked self-inflicted Maria noted with pity. Her hair was unkempt, and her clothing torn and dirty… and oddly stained. The Hunter felt a surge of adrenaline at the realization that what covered the woman was dried blood. It was blood from the dead woman—Maria could smell it from here. That, combined with the dead dog's vision was enough to tell Maria that she had found her Witch. There was only the question of what to do with her.

_She's already killed a human, and that dog._ The human might have been purely self-defense, or in defense of her friend, and the dog may have startled her. Certainly she had seemed remorseful in the vision over the animal's death. She sighed, as a Hunter she had a certain amount of discretion as to how she carried out her missions. Some Hunters liked to make flashy kills, to scare the rest of the Witches into _knowing_ that they were next, even if they weren't. Maria wasn't like that. She disliked the idea of killing someone who was not a threat to humanity, who only wished to live in peace. She also knew that some Witches seemed to lose their sanity as they gained their powers. She couldn't hate them, it surely wasn't their fault their minds turned in on them like that, but they were still dangerous to human society. There is only one way to deal with a rabid dog.

"Katrina," she said, hoping that the woman still had some sense left in her. There was a remote possibility that she could be Inquisitioned, and become a Hunter. "As you know Marcus is dead," she began.

That was all it took.

Immediately a look of sheer rage filled the woman's face.

"That man!" Katrina shouted, "he deserved it! He killed her! He was unclean, unpure, filth such as he does not deserve to live!" She gestured, seemingly absently, and the white rat was lifted into the air, there was a brief squeak as the Witch crushed out her pet's tiny life.

"He was evil. Pure evil. He killed her! And the baby, he killed them!"

Maria staggered backwards as the woman advanced, drawing her gun. There was no time to think about the consequences, or the woman's reasons for murder. There was only time to act. She had time to fire off three rounds in quick succession before iron coils wrapped around her chest, and began to _squeeze._ The bullets, if they had even hit, seemed to have no effect.

"He was evil. The world is better without him," the woman chanted. "Unclean, unpure. Evil!"

Through the growing haze of red Maria finally got a clear target. The woman was only feet away, and either didn't notice or didn't care about the presence of the gun. Maria fired again, as her blood roared in her ears and her vision clouded with red. Once was all it took.

Maria fell to the ground, as the woman fell dead. The last thing she remembered was looking up into green cat-eyes.

* * *

Kilometers away the old woman sat in front of a fire, watching through the a nother's eyes. The new-born Witch was dead, and the little Hunter out cold, from the looks of things. The woman sighed, while the Witch's powers might have been useful, they had been enough to break her mind. The little Hunter, however… That trick with the dog's blood was most impressive. Yes, she would have to keep an eye out for that one.

* * *

A/N

For the folks at Harry's, total word-count is 5,289. My original word count was 3,008, so the count for this contest so far is 2,281.


	2. Living the Life

He liked to sketch.

It wasn't like he was any kind of artist, God knows. It was just that he liked to draw lines and measurements, sketching out a new extension to his mother's house, or doodling an improved gene sequencer. It was a way to pass the time during a boring meeting, as well as a way to develop new ideas.

Sketching was fun.

Somewhere along the way he had developed the knack of being able to sketch an almost completely round circle free-hand, which surprised the hell of out just about every artist he showed it to. Unlike them he had drawn dozens, perhaps hundreds of circles everyday in the classes he taught when he was a professor. It was a good way to pass time as well as a neat party trick.

Right now Toudou Hiroshi was doodling, while listening to the others shift nervously, papers rustling. There were over fifty people in designed for less then half that number, but no one seemed to mind. The seats surrounding the table were packed, with more scientists lining the walls. They spoke quietly to each other, but under the murmur was a sense of excitement, even if most of them didn't know why they had been called here today, they still sensed that something import was about to occur.

All eyes turned to the door as it swung open, and the room was suddenly filled with expectant silence. The newcomers were known by all the waiting scientists. In the lead were Dr. Monay, a biochemist from Mexico, and the current Director of SOLOMON's Genetic Research Team. Following him was Father Koushon, the liaison between the team and the rest of SOLOMON.

Out of the corner of his eye Toudou saw Zaizen lean back in his chair and smile. They had met at the Tokyo Institute of Technology where Toudou was an Assistant Professor. SOLOMON had sent Zaizen to the Institution in order to learn how to manage a team of scientists, grooming him for the role that he would assume today. They had become friends, and Zaizen lured him away from the University by offering him a position with FZ Genetics, which in reality turned out to be the SOLOMON Research team..

Before working with SOLOMON Toudou had never heard of Witches, the only exposure he had to such powers was at the movies, or in fantasy books. Never did he think that they could be real. At first he was skeptical, but after a demonstration by one of SOLOMON's Craft Users, a Hunter that had been stationed in Japan, he was convinced. After viewing the damage left by a Witch after a Hunt, he was more then that, he was fascinated. To think that a human brain was actually capable of effecting the world in such a way, that it could handle powers and do things that usually required specialized tools, was amazing. He couldn't argue that such powers could be dangerous, after being introduced to the world of SOLOMON, of Witches, SEEDs and Craft-Users, he could see all the problems associated with such power.

That didn't stop him from admiring those who could use such powers.

The Director stood at the podium, his subordinates flanking him. He fiddled with a control on the podium, and behind him a white screen lowered itself and the room lights dimmed. The projector in the middle of the table powered up, and SOLOMON's Research Division Logo appeared on the screen.

"There is no need for introductions, I think most of you know each other and myself," the Director began in that disarming manner of his. There was a general chuckle, and the Director smiled and waited patiently for it to die down again. Toudou could feel a general relaxation in the atmosphere of the room, which was surely Dr. Monay's intention.

"All of you by now have been introduced to the powers of Witches and Craft-Users," he continued, "and have some idea as to our, SOLOMON's, intentions concerning them." The scientist glanced uneasily at each other. While all of them had seen the damage that an uncontrolled Witch caused, many still felt uncomfortable with SOLOMON's methods of dealing with them. In the weeks leading up the this conference Toudou had a chance to talk to most of them, and at one point or another they had all brought up the Holocaust, and the medical experiments that the Nazis had performed on living human beings. It was clear that while they understood the danger Witches posed, they were also worried about the ethical considerations of killing vast numbers of people.

"As you know, historically the only way to deal with a Witch was to kill him or her. In the past this was sometimes taken too far, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not millions if innocent lives." The screen flicked and the logo changed to show wood cuttings of 'witches' being hanged, drowned, or burned at the stake. "It is estimated that during the height of the Medieval witch-hunts only one in a hundred of those killed for witch craft were truly Witches or SEEDs."

"Public outrage, and the arrival of the Enlightenment finally stopped the majority of the Hunts, and all of the false ones. Unfortunately Witches were now free to prey on humans with little retaliation. In order to combat the growing threat SOLOMON was formed by the a coalition of governments, headed by the Catholic Church." Toudou suspected that the Director was glossing over a few things, mainly why SOLOMON wanted to destroy all the Witches, not just control them. According to SOLOMON Witches originated when the 'Sons of God', fallen angels for the most part, mated with human women, creating a race of giants. The descendants of these giants supposedly had the powers of God illicitly, powers that no human should have. Most of the scientists in the room would have no truck with such superstition, he knew, the vast majority of geneticists and biologists firmly believed in the reality of evolution. If they believed in God at all they typically took a more agnostic view of Him. Talk of 'angels' and 'Sons of God' meant little to them.

The wood cuts changed and now they were looking at images of the Geneva Convention on Human Rights and the UN Peacekeeping Forces in Serbia. "Times are changing. Most the modern world does not accept the necessity of capitol punishment. If SOLOMON wishes to modernize then it must take advantage of this new world. To that end we are setting in motion several programs." He gestured to Toudou, "The first, and most important, is to study the Witch's genetic structure, to determine how to identify Witches and SEEDS, as well as those humans who carry their genes."

"Then," and now he turned to Zaizen and nodded, "using that information we will start investigating the Witches themselves, probing their powers, and identifying ways to neutralize them safely, without killing." There was a surprised murmur from the watching scientists. This was new to SOLOMON, from what Toudou understood, and new to the world. He felt a surge of adrenaline, to think the _he_ would be one of the lead researchers on this project!

This was the best day of his life.

* * *

"Think we can do it?"

It was later that night, and the adrenaline had finally worn off, and now the fear was beginning to sink in. Not fear for his survival, or fear of what he was going to do, but rather fear of failure. Of screwing up and destroying his reputation and becoming just another pill-pusher for a company looking for a new way to lower blood pressure, or cure the common cold. It had been his goal for as long as he could remember to do something really important. He didn't want to be a household name, if had wanted fame he would have become an actor or singer, no, he wanted to make such a lasting impression on the world that a thousand years from now his contributions would still be important.

The Witch Genome Project seemed to be that contribution, but it was equally likely that he could fail, and nothing of his would live on to enhance the world. It was a risk he had to take.

Zaizen smiled slightly and pulled out one of his cigars, lighting it. He took a moment before answering, sucking a lungful of smoke and letting it out to the Rome night air. Toudou frowned slightly, his friend knew that eh didn't like him smoking around him, but did it anyways.

"Yes, I think we can." Zaizen answered, and that was all. They turned another corner, and found the pub that they had been going to almost every night since their arrival in Rome. I was dark and musty, and there wasn't anything really attractive about it, other then the fact that no one would even think to look for one of SOLOMON's best ex-hunters who was now in the fast track for some kind of important administrative position within that organization, and one of said organization's top scientists. It wasn't that they were trying to hide anything, really, it was just that they didn't want to talk business, unless they were the ones doing it. Had they gone to one of the better pubs in town they might have run into one of their colleagues.

"I have to think so," Zaizen finally replied. "If we can sequence the genome in time, before the rest of the world is able to do so we would have a tremendous advantage."

"Hah." It was a more a puff of air then a laugh. The truth was that SOLOMON wasn't the only organization in the world that knew about Witches, or attempted to use them to their advantage. There were governments that likely were doing their own research, even if they're supposed to be let SOLOMON handle all Craft-related. He didn't know all the details, of course, but he was aware of some of the other research that was going on in the rest of the world. Mostly it was by those who knew nothing about Witches and Craft Users. His competitors were researchers surveying the human genome, looking for clues to diseases and the keys to human evolution, nothing more.

A few of them, however…

Well, that was the job of SOLOMON's spies, not his.

They entered their favorite pub and took their usual seats by the bar. The barman smiled, and the local working girls flirted, although they knew by now that neither man was interested in them. Zaizen ordered, and said he was paying that night. They joked and chatted about this and that, and when it got quiet that was when Toudou brought out his doodles. These didn't mean anything, really, they were simply a memory aid from the meeting, and of his dreams. Sections of DNA appeared and disappeared through-out the notebook. No human could ever hope to draw the human genome, after all, but that didn't keep him from trying.

Zaizen sat up at the sight of the notebook, he knew what was in it, of course, and he also knew what it meant when Toudou pulled it out in the tavern. It meant that he had an interesting idea. Toudou gestured to the barman and ordered another round while his friend tapped the ash off the cigar and took another huff on it. He found himself smiling a bit at Zaizen's faintly quizzical expression.

"The genes of angels, fallen but still angels, are what makes a Witch a Witch." He said slowly, idly doodling in the blank face of a ghostly woman. He wasn't usually good with faces, but this one seemed to burn itself into his mind.

Zaizen nodded. So far Toudou had said nothing that he didn't already know.

"And if Witches are simply un-controlled and un-Saved Craft-Users, that means that ordinary Craft-Users, such as the ones that SOLOMON employs as Hunters, also have the angel genes." Now her body was partly formed, something made him stop before he could complete the body. Instead he turned to the background and began filling it in with DNA, both the actual sequences and the double helix. _What a perfect design._ Truly DNA was a thing of beauty more fantastic then the greatest masterpiece of artistry and engineering that humanity was capable of. There was nothing that could match it.

"And?" Zaizen said, breaking his contemplation of the glamour of the double helix. He shrugged.

"And they have the same genes Witches do. If we were to get enough samples of DNA from Craft-Users as well as normal human beings we would be able to find out just what those genetic differences are. Perhaps Witches have special genes? Or do they have a different chromsome count? That is something that only scientific inquiry discover."

"Huh." Zaizen leaned back and took another puff of his cigar, before carefully grinding it out on the table. His eyes narrowed into slits, and Toudou watched him gaze into nothing. "Are Witches a different species?" he asked.

"I think that's always been assumed, but assumptions should never be made in science."

There was a lull in the conversation, and the sound of a football team on TV that everyone else in the room seemed to be watching indicated that the crowd favorite was not doing that great. Toudou eyed Zaizen and wondered just what the other man was thinking.

Somewhere just outside the city and nightingale sang.

* * *

_Searching, searching, always searching. The forest she was in was dark and cold, and strangely empty. Didn't birds and small animals live in forests? Here, there was nothing. A desert would have been livelier_.

_She drifted, an invisible presence in the silent forest. Searching for something that she still, after all these years, could not identify. There was something not there, whose absence was contacted to the silence of the forest. Not even the whisper wind stirred the silence. Still, there was something there. Something whose very presence pulled her in one direction. Maria paused, trying to pierce the silence. Nothing, just the ever-present pull of something not quite right. She decided to follow it._

_The forest shifted and changed, and somewhere along the way a fog manifested itself. The forest was no longer empty. Half-seen ghostly shapes and what could have been far-off plaintive cries made themselves know to the edge of her senses. However hard she tried, she could not get them to focus into something more then a wraith._

_Then the fog and forest was gone, and before her stood her father, and several of his assistants. They faced away from her, watching a distant building. "Father?" she tried to say._

_It was then she realized that she was as silent as the forest. Nor could she touch him when she reached out her hand. _

_Her hand fell to her side, and she found her gaze pulled to the building. There was something inside it, that thing that she had been searching for. Maria stepped forward, or tried to, but found that her feet were now rooted in place. She wanted whatever was there, and now with her goal in sight she couldn't move. She jerked in anger and frustration, but no matter how she tried she could not move._

_There was a sound, an odd whimper from and old man's throat, and before Maria's horrified eyes the building collapsed in on itself. She moaned, and reached out toward it, and then the world shifted. Confused, she looked around, there was no trace of her father or the building to be found. Here was no forest, no hill, instead she stood on an empty plain as flat and as clear as glass._

"_He tried to kill her."_

_Maria spun around. Behind her was Katrina, the Witch she had just Hunted. Glittering tears ran down the woman's face, but her expression was peaceful. _

"_He tried to kill her, and _he_ tried to kill her, but they both failed. She would not let them. They loved her too well."_

_Maria's crinkled her brow. "Do you mean Marcus, and that woman, Anna-Marie?" It turned out to the wrong question to ask._

"_No," that last was more a whimper then a word. "No. He killed her, that Marcus, he was evil! He deserved death." Katrina's calm expression shatter, and was replaced by the insane rage that Maria had seen before. "No! She cannot be dead! Not her, not my friend! Not sweet Anna!"_

_The air of that place was no longer still, but instead seemed to be filled with the power of that enraged spirit. The wind blew giant gusts of air, battering against the Hunter. The dead woman's dress was whipped into a frenzy as the power poured from it's mistress. Hate and rage, and what looked like pure insanity scrawled itself across her face and into the world. Maria felt herself being blown backwards across the glassy surface of the plain. She fell to her knees and clawed at the ground, trying futily to dig her nails into the impenetrable surface. She pounded her fists into it, and suddenly the glass fractured, and she fell into the void…_

Maria started awake, and for one long panicked moment couldn't remember where she was or what she had been doing. She sat up, her pulse pounding painfully in her head, joints and ligaments screaming with agony, while the room momentarily spun around her. Shaking off the edges of the quickly fading dream Maria stood up and staggered to the body of the Witch. A quick check was all it took to reveal that the woman was dead, Maria's final bullet had shattered her skull, leaving the Witch's brains splattered on the wall behind her. Nauseated, the Hunter turned away.

The Witch's voice still seemed to float in the air. Was that fair? This whole mess was started by one cruel man, a man who had been as deadly as any Witch, but without any superhuman powers. _The murder of her friend unhinged her._ Maria wondered what she would do if that ever happed to her. That didn't justify using unholy powers against a human, but it did make it more understandable.

Joints clicking and creaking she managed to pull herself fully upright. The pain nearly caused her to black out again. She hadn't used her powers in battle and it shouldn't be this bad. The disease must be progressing.

In the end her mother had to retire fully from her duties just months before she died. Any use of the Craft, even minor demonstrations while training Hunters triggered another painful attack. Well, Maria always knew this disease would kill her as it did Mother. Sooner or later she would die, and she had decided long ago that she would be better to die in God's service then to live as a bedridden invalid. She would be a Hunter even if it shortened her life.

That was the reason her father didn't want her to be a Hunter, even as he glowed with pride over her decision to follow her parents footsteps.

The wall behind the Witch held two new holes created by the two bullets that had missed. She cursed her aim, even if handguns weren't really all that accurate she still should have been able to hit the Witch at such a close distance. Perhaps she needed to visit the firing range again. Tiredly she pulled out her cell phone to call Headquarters and request a cleanup team. While some Hunters, such as Sastre, sneered at them, Maria knew that for her they were a necessity, especially now when she could barely move, let alone drive home. Just her luck, her first Hunt in months and she was going to be bedridden for at least a couple of days because of it. If this kept up then Headquarters would really retire her on Medical, against her will.

After she hung up Maria sat down as joints gave way to the demands of her body, and she found herself staring at the dead woman. For some reason her dream came back to her, "_They couldn't kill her, she wouldn't let them._" As the building fell, or was that after? Did it matter? "_They loved her too well…_"

Who were "she" and "they?" What did that have to do with her dreams?

Unnoticed by the Hunter a catwatched her from on top of the display cabinate,blinking cat-green eyes.


End file.
